08/28/2024 – 15:15
The Islamist regime is once again targeting women with another authoritarian package of measures. “We don’t expect our situation to improve in the future. We will be forced to commit suicide,” laments an Afghan woman. The Taliban government in Afghanistan recently passed a new “Virtues Law” to ensure compliance with social rules that were previously strictly enforced by the morality police.
With this, the Taliban is further tightening restrictions on women and girls. Now, in addition to being forced to hide their faces and bodies when leaving their homes, they will also no longer be able to make themselves heard in public spaces.
The regime’s justification is that a woman’s voice is something intimate, and that is why they should not sing, declaim or read out loud.
The new rules increase the Islamic fundamentalist group’s control over women’s private lives and interactions in Afghan society.
The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned the law. The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, says it signals a “disturbing vision” of the country’s future and heightens “already unbearable restrictions” on the rights of women and children. “Even the sound of a female voice” outside the home, the diplomat says, is already treated as a moral violation.
Women banned from public life
Since seizing power again in August 2021, the Taliban has destroyed advances in women’s rights achieved over the past two decades.
Women and girls have been banned from almost every sector of public life. They cannot attend school beyond the seventh grade, nor access local jobs and non-governmental organizations.
They are also not allowed to go to gyms, parks or beauty salons, which were made illegal under the Taliban. To go out, they must be accompanied by a “Mahram” (male relative).
The new rules also affect men, dictating men’s attire and beard length.
Homosexuality, animal fighting, public music, fireworks and cultural celebrations and non-Muslim holidays, such as Nowruz, which marks the arrival of spring, are also prohibited by law.
Power and impunity
For Fereshta Abbasi of Human Rights Watch (HRW), the introduction of these new bans not only signals control, but also reinforces the Taliban’s authoritarian rule.
“This law deals with the smallest human interactions and goes beyond the surveillance of personal relationships in society,” Abbasi told DW. “Our concern is that the Taliban will implement it in an extremely harsh manner. There will be no more privacy for the citizens of Afghanistan, and this law creates an open platform for more human rights violations in the country.”
According to Abbasi, the Ministry of Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue has “enormous power and impunity.” The ministry recently announced that it will fire more than 280 members of the security forces in 2023 for not growing beards. Another 13,000 people have reportedly been detained for “immoral actions” under sharia, Islamic law.
“In a situation where there is no judicial process in Afghanistan, members of this ministry can, in most cases, punish individuals directly. This violates the most basic human rights laws and principles,” Abbasi notes.
What Afghan women say
Amira – who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for her safety – was forced to stop studying journalism at a university in Kabul after the Taliban came to power. She says she is worried about the current situation.
“After so many years of war, we still do not feel safe and we find ourselves facing a new type of war, fought in the name of religion. We are excluded from society and live as if in a prison, while women in other parts of the world continue to advance.”
A similar outburst is made by Roya (name also changed), who works in an organization for refugees in Nangarhar province.
“As an Afghan woman, it is hard to imagine life under these conditions. If I, as a working woman, feel repressed, how do women who stay at home feel?” she asks. “We do not expect our situation to improve in the future. We will be forced to commit suicide.”
Despite being widely criticized, the Taliban regime has yet to show any signs of giving up its hardline policies. The group’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Achundsada, insists that Afghan women live “comfortable and prosperous” lives.
Taliban gradually resumes international ties
The international community has strongly condemned the Taliban for its treatment of women. Some countries have made any relations with Afghanistan conditional on improving human rights and women’s access to education, as well as the formation of a more inclusive government.
Despite this, the Taliban has managed to establish diplomatic relations with some countries in the region, such as Russia, China, Pakistan, India and other Central Asian nations.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently accepted the diplomatic credentials of a Taliban nominee for ambassador. Until then, only China had accepted a Taliban ambassador.
The UAE justified the move by saying it was part of a broader effort to ensure humanitarian aid and stability in Afghanistan. However, it remains unclear what the consequences of cooperating with an Islamic fundamentalist regime that openly violates human rights will be.
Controversy in Germany
The debate over how to deal with the Taliban is becoming increasingly controversial in Germany as well.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the new laws “nearly a hundred pages of misogyny” to silence half of the Afghan population and vehemently ruled out resuming relations with the Taliban regime.
Opposition parties such as the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of former Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel insist on a more pragmatic stance, arguing that cooperation with the Taliban is desirable to facilitate the deportation of Afghans who are criminals or whose asylum applications have been rejected.
The CDU’s proposal is controversial: critics warn that such a stance could legitimize the Taliban and undermine Germany’s commitment to human rights.
Meanwhile, the future of Afghan women and girls is looking increasingly bleak. Human rights activists are calling for the international community to go beyond mere rhetoric and take concrete action to support Afghan women and hold the Taliban accountable for their actions.
With information from Helay Asad and Ghazanfar Adeli.
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